


just a drop of tainted blood

by The-Immortal-Moon (LunaKat)



Series: All Hollow's Eve (Edween 2019) [3]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Edween Week 2019, F/M, Late Night Conversations, Prompt Fic, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Vampire Edward Elric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-16 22:58:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21279134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaKat/pseuds/The-Immortal-Moon
Summary: For Edween Week 2019. Day 3: SacrificeIt’s... for the best. For both of their sakes.





	just a drop of tainted blood

“You’ve been avoiding me lately, haven’t you?”

Ed nearly falls right off the damn roof. What the _hell_ happened to “supernaturally sharp senses”, huh? How the hell was he so easily caught by surprise when he can smell everything within a twenty-foot-radius of himself?

Clearly Winry Rockbell has some supernatural ability of her own, being able to slip past his nose and his eyes and get this close without his noticing. She balances on the ladder propped up against the side of her house, peering at him over the gutter with amusement dancing in her cerulean eyes. He has no doubt that there’s a smile curling her lips back, hidden only by the fact that she stands one rung too low for him to see.

He scoffs and folds his arms over his chest. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She gives him an eyeroll of exaggerated exasperation as she clamors the rest of the way up. Judging by her rumpled pyjamas and the way her dandelion-yellow hair streams down her back freely instead of being bound by her usual ponytail, he supposes it’s safe to say that she was sleeping until now. The shingles give a weary creak as she scales the roof’s slanted angles, her steps careful and her arms thrown out to maintain her balance.

Just as she’s about to reach him, though, her socked foot slips. The yelp of alarm barely has time to leave her throat before he shoots forward like an arrow, faster than the eye can blink. Her wrist is snared by his hand and he tugs her forward.

Instead of falling off the edge, they both fall back and land with a collective thud against the shingled surface. He ends up pinned against the ground with her sprawled awkwardly atop him in a coltish tangle of limbs. Her hair spills everywhere in a creamy whirl. Their breaths end up occupying the same space. Her nose brushes against his as she attempts to sit up.

“Oh,” she says, blinking at him. His night vision blanches everything out, renders the darkness in monochrome clarity rather than color, but he can’t help but notice the way her cheeks darken, ever-so-faintly. “Thanks.”

He gives an awkward cough and looks away. “You’re, uh, welcome.”

Another nigh-eternal moment passes before Winry finally decides to scramble off of him. Ed finally gulps down a breath as he’s allowed to sit up and tries desperately not to think about the squish of her chest against his and when her body started to push her clothes outwards. Nope, nope, nope, not doing that. You hear that hormones? _Hell_ no.

She settles at his side, crossing her legs to mirror him. Her fingers kneed at the fabric of her fleecy pyjama pants, her gaze carefully lowered and her face still a touch darker than normal. “K-Kind of dangerous up here, yeah?”

Thank god for conversation. Ed doesn’t think he’s ever been so glad to talk. “Only ‘cause you’re such a klutz.”

At that, she seems to recover instantly—at least enough to shoot him an offended look. “_You’re_ clumsier than I am.”

“What? Since when?”

“Shorter, too,” she adds with a smirk.

“_Hey_!”

“So what are you even doing up this late, anyway?” she asks before he can launch into a long rant about how he’s still growing, just a little behind on growth spurts is all, nothing’s ever set in stone at fifteen, he’s going to tower her by the time they’re both twenty, just you wait. “You guys are leaving on an early train tomorrow, aren’t you?”

“How do you—” He stops, blinks, and then resists the urge to bang his fist against the shingles. “_Dammit_, Alphonse.”

At this point, he’s not even surprised. Despite their mutual agreement that they already owe the Rockbells too much and that it would be unfair to involve them any further than they already have, Al has never been completely particularly onboard with Ed’s idea to make a clean break. Understands the logic behind it, but disagrees on a more sentimental level. Mix that in with his brother being too considerate for his own good, a terrible liar, and Winry’s ability to narrow her eyes in this way that makes it impossible to hide things from her and... well. Ed supposes it was wishful thinking that they could keep it under raps.

“I’m kind of surprised you weren’t going to tell me.” There’s this bright, sharp note in her tone that sticks out like a glass shard glittering at him, aimed at his jugular, a promise to revisit that subject later.

“W-We just decided it last night?” He cringes. Could he _sound _more unconvincing?

“Shouldn’t you be getting some sleep, then?” she says in a tone that drips with _I find that **very** hard to believe_.

Shit. This is going to get messy, isn’t it? “Yeah. I just...”

Fingertips brush the side of his throat, and he tenses. Without even realizing it, he’s raised his hand to touch the scars marring his jugular, evidence of his and Al’s abysmal failure to resurrect Mom. Evidence of why he is the way he is now.

His chest tightens as he forces his hand pack into his lap. Curls it to a fist to suppress the urge from rising in him again. “Couldn’t sleep.”

It doesn’t go unnoticed, this new habit of his, and her gaze darkens with sorrow. He’s grown to really hate it when that _look_ surfaces on people’s expression. It certainly doesn’t help that his symptoms have only grown more pronounced in the weeks that have lapsed since Mustang arrived, then left, and stripped away the nameless terror of uncertainty from the cause.

Oh, knowing doesn’t _stop_ the curse from little by little settling more firmly in his bones, but at least now he can figure out a strategy for managing it. To Al, knowledge is power—above all else, the reason they’re going to Central and apply for state licensure is to get _him_ back to normal, but his brother is convinced that the military’s grimoire libraries might hold the key to fixing Ed, too, and...

And Ed doesn’t want to snuff the light out from his brother’s eyes. So he won’t say anything.

“Bad dreams?” Winry asks, not without sympathy.

“No.” Well, okay, _technically_ yes, because you don’t exactly sleep _soundly_ after nearly dying—but that’s not the cause.

But she won’t let up, leans in, concern sharpened to a keen edge in her sapphire gaze. “Was it the lamb? Was it cooked too much?”

“What? No.” He draws back when her warmth starts to radiate onto him. Too close. “It was fine.”

More than fine, actually. Red and rare and bloody in way that was enough to make Al grimace in visible disgust as Ed devoured it. But it did the trick.

Worry won’t abate from her, though. “Are you _sure_?”

“Yes, Winry.” It’s understandable, why she’s so concerned about what he’s eating and how it affects him. His appetite was the first thing about him to change, after all.

“Hell” is the best word to describe the week that followed his and Al stumbling bloodily onto their porch that night. Hunger and thirst became strangers to Al, along with taste and smell and touch. In sharp contrast, Ed couldn’t keep anything down for the life of him, even as he found himself doubled-over at times from the hunger that carved him from the inside out. It certainly hadn’t helped that his wounds were healed faster than his body could compensate, the gouges on his right shoulder rapidly reduced to tender scars and the splintered fragments of the bones in his left leg piecing themselves back together. His body desperately needed to make up for that costly expenditure and in that last day, between hunger and exhaustion, he could barely see straight.

If not for Mustang and his lieutenant showing up then—to investigate the origins of the monster they had found and then killed further north of the town—then things could have ended... badly. That slit wrist weeping tainted blood saved his life.

(Actually, no. His dying from starvation would have been the lesser of two evils.)

Anyway, red meat seems to work as a palatable substitute, as long as it’s as close to raw and fresh as possible. Not _quite_ what he craves, but... good enough.

“My circadian rhythm’s doing a whole one-eighty,” Ed explains, leaning his chin against pale knuckles. “Whenever I try sleeping at night, now, it feels like I’m taking a nap or sleeping in late or something.”

A pause overcomes her at that. Al must have mentioned how bleary he’s been in the daytime, the stifled yawns and the nodding off here and there. Understanding dawns quickly on her face, followed by something that kind of hurts to look at. “Oh.”

He clucks his tongue. “The joys of being nocturnal.”

Silence lapses over them for a moment. Somewhere in the distance, an autumn breeze stirs through the woods further up to north. Whiffs of damp leaves and loam mix to create an oddly nutty scent. If Ed closes his eyes, parts his mouth and focuses hard enough, he’s sure he could map out the hills with taste and scent alone. At least the sudden intensity of his senses doesn’t leave him overwhelmed and nauseous anymore. It means he’s adjusting.

That doesn’t feel like a good thing.

“I guess Al appreciates having someone to stay up late with him, huh?” The little smile that she forces onto her face is falsely-bright.

Guilt leaves a sour tang inside Ed’s mouth as he recalls how he left his brother—curled up in the corner, idling away the hours in the pages of an old spell-book, now that sleep has, too, become a foreigner to him. Al, whose eyes are grey instead of gold like they should be and permanent bruises ringing darkly around his windpipe.

They both wear the evidence on their throats. Ed, where teeth sank into his jugular. Al, where his neck was snapped clean in two.

“...yeah.” Ed swallows thickly, pulls his left leg close to his chest. It’s crooked from where the bone was mercilessly shattered, then speedily healed by his transformation, and he won’t be able to walk without a faint limp now. “Probably the only perk out of all of this.”

In his periphery, he catches the shift and flutter on Winry’s expression. Clouds blot the stars out, cast an oily darkness across the world that must leave her struggling to see her own hand in front of her face, much less his silhouette. Perhaps the only thing that let her find him was the way his eyes refract light now, pupils aglow against the gloom. But his new, inhuman eyes peel the murk away, chisel sharp angles from the shadows. He can see every complex emotion that passes over her.

“...it wasn’t your fault, y’know.”

“I know,” he says, just to humor her.

But it was, though. The book of shadows, digging up Mom’s corpse, drawing the summoning circle—that was all him. And the spell that keeps Al’s soul bound to his body is Ed’s doing.

The way the corpse jerked around in the circle, thrashing limbs and a scream tearing from its throat—all of it should have been his first clue to _stop_. But he _didn’t_. Instead he waited until the demon sewn into Mom’s body bolted upright, chest heaving and mouth full of gleaming white fangs, before he tasted fear. And that hesitation, that refusal, is what landed them in their situation more than the initial idea. When that creature fled out their back door, it left Al lying too-still and his eyes glassily staring at nothing, and Ed with the life gushing out from his throat and pooling underneath him. And none it would have happened, if not for him.

Why the monster didn’t just drained him outright will forever remain a mystery to him. Maybe something scared it off. Maybe it smelled something tastier. Who fucking _knows_. He doesn’t remember much beyond the darkness closing in on all sides while he crawled on his hands and his knees, dizzy from pain and blood-loss, the incantation and the runes already half-formed in his head.

What happened to Al was not Ed’s intent. He hadn’t thought that a recently-dead corpse would count as an inanimate object. Hadn’t thought he would trap his brother in his own body while robbing him of the ability to feel and eat and sleep and a human life.

Al now exists as a soul sewn in a cadaver, undead in every sense of the word—and it’s all Ed’s fault.

If you think about it, his affliction is more penance than tragedy.

“And I know you,” she goes on, her voice soft against the whisper of wind in the distance. “You’re smart, and determined, and if anyone can find a cure, it’s you.”

Cure, huh?

For Al, yes, there’s a possibility. It’s never been heard of, to use a corpse for a golem’s base, but golems themselves pepper historical accounts in various degrees of fiction. If there’s any place that would have sources centered around the topic, it’s the military’s highly-classified grimoire libraries. Only State Mages have access, so Ed is going to Central, going to earn his certification, going to find a way to make this right. If he can just resurrect the _body_, get Al’s heart _beating_ again—

Al has a chance. _Al_ has a chance.

Ed...

Mustang says the monster’s fangs were dripping venom when he killed it. That same venom must have dripped into Ed’s veins, when it sank its teeth right into his flesh and narrowly tore his throat out. Even if he hadn’t bled out, even if that monster hadn’t drained him dry, that venom would have ended him. But instead, he plunged into spellwork, and _something_ about the immediate exposure to magic set an internal reaction. Changed the properties of toxin—so it would convert instead of kill.

Apparently the same phenomenon exists in therianthrope saliva. Therianthropes are known to be pretty largely non-infectious otherwise, but something about spellcasting turns it into a catalyst. There’s documentation on it, apparently. Research conducted by the military.

Which is exactly the justification the military needed to raze Ishval to the ground. Oh, it didn’t matter _how_ non-infectious the therianthropes were, how content they were to keep to themselves, how peaceful their religion was. Infectious curses are reviled for their permanence, for the way they slowly leech away humanity. “Monster” is a relative term that was pressed brutally into the Ishvalans, because Amestris was done tolerating the not-human society nestled in its southeasternmost corner. Mages became exterminators, blinding the world with fire and glory as they oh-so-bravely combated what they were brainwashed to believe was a national threat. They returned victorious, lauded with adulation, lionized for the smoldering ruins they left in their wake.

(Although, Ed couldn’t help but note the taint in Mustang’s scent—dark magic and musk and something unmistakably canine—so perhaps... perhaps the mage hadn’t emerged unscathed.)

But if people learned that _vampire_ bites were infectious...

Vampires are living defilements of nature’s laws, twisted marriages of black magic and human arrogance. Teacher only mentioned them once to call them the most dangerous thing that magic could ever produce. If it became known that their ravenous nature could leap, could latch onto people—

Mages would be slaughtered en mass for the simple _possibility_ of performing necromancy.

So not only is their secret to be closely guarded, but Ed knows—knows there’s no way to reverse it. Golems of corpses are one thing, infectious vampirism is another. One can be undone. The other is going to sink into him, blacken his veins, and purge the remnant shards of humanity left rattling around in his soul.

The sudden jab of an elbow in his side shatters his musings to glittering pieces. He turns to find her with her legs curled up to her chest, her gaze soft but unyielding. “You still haven’t answered my question.”

“What question?”

She folds her arms on the perch of her elbows, and her head drops against her forearms. Her hair falls around her, silky pale, bright against the darkness. If the moon were out now, she would glow beneath it, silver-bright and lovely and forlorn. “About how you’ve been avoiding me.”

Oh. Right. Damn. Ed had been hoping she’d forgotten, or at least would be willing to drop it.

Well, he’s already got the shovel in hand. Might as well start digging. “I thought I told you I had no idea what you’re talking about.”

“No?” Shadows of skepticism darken her features. “Then how come I had to find out from Al that you were leaving tomorrow morning?”

_Because he’s a little rat who can’t keep his mouth shut._ “Told you. We, uh, just decided on it recently.”

“You still could have _told_ me.” A bite of anger snaps in her words.

He winces and refuses to let guilt twinge in his belly. This is necessary, remember? “W-We were gonna tell you tomorrow.”

“Uh huh,” she deadpans, looking moments away from grabbing his ear and twisting it until he confesses. “Okay. What about the fact that you’ve been spending all night out on the roof?”

_How does she—_ “I-I don’t—”

“I’ve _heard_ you screaming at the rooster every morning.”

“Only because he tries to _peck my eyes out_!” Ed protests.

...and just like that, he’s been caught. Her head shoots up, eyes bright with triumph.

_Aw shit._

“It’s not just the roof,” she goes on while he shrinks back. Her voice is carefully firm, each syllable kneading against him as it tries to shake the truth loose. “You don’t come out of your room in the day. You don’t eat with us anymore. I saw you in the hall once and you bolted into the bathroom like a madman and locked the door behind you.”

“I-I...” Shit. Think of something, think of something, think of something—

“You _have_ been avoiding me.” Crisp, certain, firm. Accusation, and no room for argument.

Oily darkness presses on all around them, thick and tense and undulating. The whispering wind in the distance falls abruptly still, as though intrigued by the spectacle. The night holds its breath in anticipation.

Finally, he drops his head with a defeated sigh. There’s no point in hiding it. There never really was.

She pins him with that terribly hard stare that leaves no room for anything beyond the truth. “Gonna tell me why?”

“Why do you think?”

Silence shifts and whispers between them. You can see it from here, the gleaming white husk of what was once his childhood home, sitting on the hill like a skeleton picked clean and bleached beneath the sun. Every time he sees it on the horizon, it feels like a taunt as much as it does a nightmare. That monster they conjured was brought to life within its walls, and left its mark in the deep furrows all along the floorboards and walls with its wicked claws. There’s no way they can so much as set foot in that place without being reminded of their sin.

Surprisingly, Al was receptive to the idea of burning it down. Maybe he wasn’t fond of a clean break, but he understood the necessity of cutting ties. He just wanted to wait until it was late enough for them to disappear at the train station, so that they could vanish into the wind with a whisper of smoke and flame.

It’ll leave an echo, at least. Something to remember them by.

“Un_believable_,” Winry grumbles at last, somewhere between disbelief and outrage.

Ed doesn’t answer. He absently runs his tongue over his upper gums and the twin swells just above his eyeteeth, where pearly fangs lay sheathed.

Her glare sears into the back of his head as he turns away. Everything is rendered monochrome by his night vision, but he can imagine how fierce and bright and blue her eyes would be in the daylight. “You should have some _faith_ in yourself.”

A breath of laughter trembles in his throat. “I could hurt you.”

That earns him a disbelieving huff that jabs at a nerve. “Oh, please!” she scoffs. “You live in _fear_ of my wrench. Who’s _really_ going to hurt who?”

Anger sparks through his veins, and his teeth clench together so hard they _clack_. Before he even realizes what he’s doing, he’s whirled around and lunged forward and then before either of them can so much as blink, her wrists are captive in his bruising grip.

An audible _thump_ marks her skull landing against the shingled surface, creamy-pale hair pooling out around her head in a loose, bright halo against the darkness. Her eyes grow wide as he pins her arms high above her head, too far away to be called to used in her defense. A knee is pressed to her belly as an extra countermeasure against any attempted struggle for freedom, any thrashing and writhing and screaming that would be otherwise useless—she could never hope to match the inhuman strength that coils deep and shadow-swift inside his body. All it would take is a little squeeze, a little more pressure to her wrists, and he could reduce the bones inside to powder.

Her breath hitches as he leans in close, bows his head down next to hers. here’s warmth radiating off her skin that he can only feel now because he’s colder than he used to be.

“I’m faster than you,” he whispers into the shell of her ear, and he feels the way her body tenses underneath him. “I’m stronger than you. If I attacked for _real_, I could _kill_ you—and it would be _nothing_.”

Muscles twitch in her throat as she swallows. It’s faint, but there’s a tickle of fear in her scent now, a metallic shadow. It mingles with the hot-sweet scent of human blood, the quickness of her pulse twitching in her veins—and he ate earlier, gorged himself on that rare hunk of lamb, surfaced contentedly with blood dripping down his chin and Al staring at him like he wanted to throw up, but...

His mouth is starting to water.

Ed _jerks_. He pulls himself away and stumbles back until there’s at least a foot of dark distance between him. She continues to lay there for a minute, dazed, while he looks anywhere but in her direction.

Thankfully, his fangs didn’t leap out—this time. He still remembers what the hunger did to him, that first week. How it carved him open, left him delirious and hyperaware of her and Granny’s heartbeats echoing through the walls. How the mere smell of them, human and soft and tantalizing blood in delicate veins, drove him half-mad to the point where he was begging Al to guard the door and keep them as far away as he could. How his pillow ended up shredded with how often he’d sink his fangs into it just to keep himself from doing the same to soft, tender flesh.

Mustang seems think as long as Ed abstains from human blood, he can continue treading this tightrope of tentative humanity. Which makes sense. It’ll slow down the change, give him enough liberty to _fight_.

But it’s going to be hard enough to fight without putting potential casualties in his path.

Fleece rustles as she slowly sits up. He has his back to her, but he can hear the burden of caution in her movement, still smell that lingering curl of fear and adrenaline on her. Her gaze tickles at the back of his head.

“You’re running away,” she says, finally.

His jaw twitches, but he doesn’t indulge her with a response. He doesn’t expect her to understand or to agree, but she’s just going to have to deal with it.

Shingles creak as she rises to her feet. He can imagine it, the hard and stubborn posture she’ll take up, knuckles planted firm on her hips and her torso bent forward for her glare to strike true. “That’s your solution, then? Just run away, disappear, hope everything is fine and dandy?”

Goddamn, doesn’t she fucking _get it_? He is a carnivore in the purest sense of the word—his presence has been a danger to the entire town the moment his fever turned cold and a whiff of blood made him lick his lips absently. She and everyone else, the entire human race, now qualifies as prey to him. There is absolutely nothing illogical or ridiculous or outrageous about wanting to put as much distance between her and himself as possible. Distance means safety. Safety he can absolutely guarantee. The same thing can’t be said if he’s here with her, now.

Just because he’s managed to control himself this far doesn’t mean he can keep this up indefinitely. There’s going to be a point where he won’t be able to stop himself, and—

“Go to bed, Winry,” he returns, flat.

...and he doesn’t want her to be there when that happens. Victim or spectator or otherwise.

“You—” Her voice _breaks_ beneath the force of her outrage, and her scent becomes heavy and spicy with anger. “You are so _stubborn_!”

Stomping footsteps rattle against the singles as they make for where the ladder remains propped up against the gutter. He catches a pale whisper of her blonde hair in his periphery as she starts to her descent. There’s a pang in his chest that he tries desperately to ignore. This is probably the last time they’ll ever see each other, the last conversation they’ll ever share, before he and Al set their house aflame and leave Risembool to shimmer half-forgotten on the horizon like a dream.

But that’s fine. If he lingers over the thought of her absence for too long, there’s an ache between his ribs that he imagines is just a taste of what he’ll have to deal with, but he’s made his peace with it. Why would he even miss that dumb gearhead, anyway? Nine times out of ten, machine oil clings to her skin like a miasma, strong enough to make him gag. Just because there’s something delightful in watching her deft fingers flutter as she works doesn’t mean he can’t live without her. Besides, listening to her gush about the wonders of machinery is annoying—even if the genuine passion is admirable in a way he refuses to admit to.

It’s fine. He’s perfectly content with losing the privilege of watching as her eyes brighten when she grins, wide and unfettered and so profoundly earnest that it leaves this strange tightness in his lungs, because people aren’t usually so open and so honest. Before long, it won’t matter. The cadence of her voice will fade until it becomes only a distant echo in his memory. Time will blur the edges of her features until he won’t be able to recall them. And then the feeling of her hand, warm against his, will crumble into dust.

It’s... for the best. For both of their sakes.

Just as resolve solidifies in his belly, he hears her pause in her retreat. A brief glance in her direction shows her stilled on the ladder, her head on the verge of disappearing behind the gutter’s metal lip. Her eyes hover just over it, halfway vanished, alight with something he can’t put a name to.

She notices him looking and glances up at him. Huffing, he turns away. Just get it over with.

“I’m not scared of you,” she whispers.

_You should be_, he thinks, but doesn’t say. Just continues to glare out at the horizon and subject her to the image of his back. He’s not going to leave a face behind for her to agonize over.

After a brief silence, her sigh feathers against the night, and there is a rustle as she continues her descent. Before long, the rattle of the wooden door at the front porch signals that she’s returned indoors. Ed stares out at the dark horizon and smothers a feeling of loss.

Another few long, shadow-thick hours are due to lapse before they’ll venture out into the gloom with a torch blazing in one hand. Ed has never seen a house burn, but he imagines that the tainted ruins of their childhood home will succumb quickly to the flames, to the heat, to the ash. It won’t be a loss—all their things are packed, their tickets tucked under Ed’s mattress, all things deemed important enough to take with them already recovered. When they finally leave Risembool, it will be with eyes stinging from smoke and a beacon of fire marking where they lost their childhood. There will be nothing left for them once the sun rises.

Well, for _him_ anyway. Ed has gone pale, but Al still has color in his face.

They’ll arrive to Central’s glittering embrace and promise for recovery of lost things. Ed’s natural gift is already impressive, but the curse in his veins has turned his talent into something dangerously powerful. Something that will surely charm the military into handing his too-young, fifteen-year-old self a gleaming silver watch. And then the grimoire libraries will open up to them. It will only be a matter of time before they find their cure.

In the meantime... Winry will move on with her life, as she was always meant to. She won’t wait for them, because she is not an extension of them, is not some stagnant creature who will remain unchanged by the passage of time or find herself broken by the burden of their absence. Rockbells are, by their very nature, forged from resilience. She’ll miss him, but she’ll move on.

Risembool will still be here, at the end of the day. It just won’t be waiting for all of them. Because if all goes according to plan—Al will become human again, Winry will live a normal life.

And Ed—

...will become a monster.

By the time the sun rises on the eve of Al’s return to humanity and his brother makes his inevitable return to Risembool’s sleepy cradle, Ed will have disappeared. Before long, he won’t be anything but a figment of their long-lost memories, an echo as the world marches ever-forward in its callous dance of night and day. They won’t spare him a thought as their lives grow sweet with contentment.

(Winry will move on. She’ll be safe and... he’ll _never_ see her again.)

Ed tells himself, over and over, that he’s okay with that. He’s content with this outcome. It’s inevitable and he’s _made his peace with it_.

He has. It hurts, but... it’s a sacrifice he’s willing to make.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not saying I like vampires, but.


End file.
